Sharpton Brings Surprises to 4-Way Senate Race; As a Candidate, He's Restyled and Determined About His Political Goals and Impact

Published: July 27, 1992

Correction Appended

(Page 2 of 2)

Democratic Party leaders have been impressed, too. The state Democratic chairman, John A. Marino, at first dismissed Mr. Sharpton as a fringe candidate and questioned his ties to the New Alliance Party, a political splinter group whose critics contend it operates like a cult.

With the backing of Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, Mr. Marino later reversed himself and said party leaders should vote to assure Mr. Sharpton a place on the primary ballot without making him circulate nominating petitions. He did so in part to avoid any messy scenes at the state party convention in May, but was more than repaid when Mr. Sharpton made a thoughtful speech that won an ovation from the delegates.

"People came up to me afterward and said, 'We thought you were doing the wrong thing, but you were right,' " Mr. Marino recalled. "It was a turning point for him. He's arrived with people, and I think that's very important. I've come to respect him in his effort to appeal to a different group in the community, and in some senses obviously reach deeper into that community than even Jesse Jackson has been able to reach."

Mr. Sharpton says he is taking no money from the New Alliance Party for his campaign, but its affiliates have booked speaking engagements for him around the country that provided much of his personal income, and New Alliance lawyers have given him legal services. He and his aides often work out of a Manhattan suite on West 57th Street filled with New Alliance affiliates.

Certainly, he has raised little money -- just $31,930, according to his official filings, compared with about $1.5 million each for Ms. Ferraro and Mr. Abrams and close to a million for Ms. Holtzman -- and he had $2,606 in the bank at last report.

Mr. Sharpton, who is well known throughout the region, lives in Englewood, N.J., with his wife, Cathy, and two daughters, but also shares a Crown Heights apartment with an aide in Brooklyn. A candidate is only required to be a New York resident when elected.

Mr. Sharpton's skill on the stump lets him elide the most controversial parts of his past. When he talks about his role as an adviser to Tawana Brawley -- the black teen-ager who, Mr. Abrams's inquiry concluded, fabricated her account of rape and abduction by whites -- he hardly offers the ringing defense he once made of her. "Even if Tawana lied," he says, "there were enough technical errors" in the initial handling of the case to arouse legitimate suspicions.

Answering a question from a member of a gay and lesbian Democratic club at a debate in Greenwich Village, he brushed aside his repeated use of the word "faggot" in all-black rallies in Brooklyn, saying he had never meant to deride homosexuals, only "someone who was less than a man or a woman in our community." A Political Lapse

And he explains away his 1986 support for Senator Alfonse M. D'Amato, the Republican he now says must be defeated, as a lapse born of desperation with the Democrats, like the late Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr.'s endorsement of President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.

Mr. Sharpton's three opponents do not seem to know what to make of him. If they tend to ignore him, they carefully do not attack him either. At one debate in Brooklyn, after Ms. Holtzman repeatedly exhorted Ms. Ferraro to release all her personal and corporate income-tax returns, Mr. Sharpton, who is under an indictment obtained by Mr. Abrams's office for failing to file state income tax returns for several years, finally said: "As far as releasing tax returns, Mr. Abrams has most of mine and he can release them when he gets ready."

At that, Mr. Abrams smiled and said, "Ah, there's only one Al Sharpton."

"And you're glad of that!" Mr. Sharpton shot back.

Ms. Irvin, the Wall Street lawyer, said her get-together "was not about the Senate race, but I think a number of people contributed to his campaign." She said she thought it was quite possible that Mr. Sharpton, like other onetime street protesters from Dr. King to Mr. Jackson, was practicing "the kind of activism that matured into leadership."

Whatever happens in the primary, Mr. Sharpton said, the winner of the Democratic nomination for the Senate will need the votes of the candidate's supporters and many more to defeat Mr. D'Amato in a tough race.

"I'm the margin of difference," he said. "That means they've got to sit down on Fulton Street in Brooklyn and eat chicken and talk, and that's something they've never had to do before in a statewide race."

Photo: The Rev. Al Sharpton speaking at the opening of his Senate campaign headquarters on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem. At his side was Dominique, one of his two daughters. (Edward Keating/The New York Times) (pg. B1) Chart: "IN HIS OWN WORDS: The Rev. Al Sharpton" "Even in the Broadway theater, those in orchestra seats pay orchestra fees and those in the balcony pay balcony fees. In our present tax structure, those in the balcony are paying orchestra fees and those in the orchestra are getting free tickets." -- On Republican economic policies, May 13 "I support the Endangered Species Act, and I think it's criminal what we've done to endangered species. I can identify with them because I'm almost an endangered species myself." -- May 13 "We do have a lot more dollars than we're making available domestically. We're telling people to tighten up their belts when they've been left standing in their underwear." -- May 14 "Clearly, it was our responsibility to express outrage, to call for change, but to do it in a way that would lead to results, not in a way that would add to the problem, and that is what we tried to do. I'm result-oriented. I'm not oriented toward one style or another. -- Calling for calm in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, May 17 "Our enemy is not in this room. Our enemyis the one who makes the room rates so high in this hote. you have two classes in American today: the upper class and no class at all." -- Accepting the Democratic State Convention's vote to place him on the primary ballot, May 28 "I think people are so surprised that I know how to say more than 'No Justice, No Peace,' that they almost become easier audiences for me. When I talk about the environment, or criminal justice or other issues, they're surprised." -- July 23 (pg. B2)

Correction: July 28, 1992, Tuesday An article yesterday about the Rev. Al Sharpton's Senate campaign referred incompletely to the amounts raised by his Democratic rivals. Robert Abrams and Geraldine A. Ferraro have each raised about $3.5 million since their campaigns began; Elizabeth Holtzman has raised $1.7 million. Of those totals, Mr. Abrams and Ms. Ferraro have each raised about $1.5 million in this year alone, and Ms. Holtzman $700,000.